Hey guys, a few friends and I got hooked on disc golf this summer like crazy. we play alot of catch and keep score every round and we're all progressing at about the same rate. our home course is fillmore park in alexandria, MN, it's a short 12 hole, but fun. every so often we go play for real at milstream park in st. joe. (havent had time to hit up the st. cloud courses yet) I just signed up for an amatuer pdga membership, and am planing my first tournament in sept.... i dont expect to be as good as everyone else, but i want to see how some good golfers play and take notes, get tips, etc.

Momac, like you I've just recently started playing (3 months) but not with friends with whom to compare on the progress learning curve. So of course I can't rate your arsenal but I do have a question for you, and in essence will add to your post in keeping with the thread topic, and maybe add some help for all us new players, struggling and otherwise.

Question is, how far are you guys driving at this early stage in your development? The reason I ask is because in the 3 months since I've started I can't break 200 ft on flat ground, except once in a while. Consistently throwing about 160-180 ft. Yah, it's embarassing especially when I've read every word in the forums on PDGA.com, here at Disc Golf Review, all of Blake's and Dunipace's articles, and every other shred of information I can get since the day I started. Very frustrating (hence my username) just not being able to execute more than that, and have been an excellent athlete all my life (age 52), and am a healthy 6''0", 195 lbs. (For example a guy in another thread has been playing 5 DAYS and is throwing 275-300 ft.!)

Without getting too out of hand with the wordiness, I'll leave it at this and see where the thread goes. But good lord this is about the funnest (yes, funnest) sport you can play with your pants on!

This is my first post so I want to say right up front, Blake thank you for your contribution to the teeming masses trying to figure this game out, you deserve a standing ovation. And thanks to all the posters who contribute.

Now when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man, the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning. You know what I mean?

Momac,
Welcome to the board. I've played Filmore a few times. It could be a little longer for my taste, but overall I think it's a pretty fun course.

Your disc selection looks OK for now. The storm is actually a mid-range, but from what I just read it's pretty long for a mid.
Just throw what you have now using the technique written about in the articles. In time that leopard will turn right on you. When it still flips over when you throw with a hyzer release, you will want to buy something more stable like a gazelle. You could even buy a gazelle right now to use for headwinds and left hooks.

AOD,
I don't know how far I was throwing when I first started. The biggest gain in distance I got was when I learned to relax my arm and let my body do the work. It's pretty similar to a ball golf swing in that technique is the key. If you try to muscle the shot, you lose fluidity. Imagine your whole body is a whip starting at the legs and working towards your fingertips. Good luck.

id like to point out i can only throw 300 ft sidearm with a driver (im the guy whos been playing for 5 days) and that my backhand is weak. im concentrating on my form only and im still having problems...[/quote]

This is my first post so I want to say right up front, Blake thank you for your contribution to the teeming masses trying to figure this game out, you deserve a standing ovation. And thanks to all the posters who contribute.

Standing ovation. Agreed. But pull your pants back on first.... for the rest of us...

i'm not really sure how far i can drive, i know i can get close to the hole on par 3s. i've been meaning to go to this old abandoned driving range near where i live just to see how far i can throw. i'll let you know.

I just started four weeks ago playing DG on the other side of the big pond.

Im not a person to ask for advice, but I think I started at around 50 meters and am now around 65-70 meters in distance. Right now im throwing without the runup, because all my shots end up high and stalling. Ive been able to get friend to shoot me with a digi cam about two weeks back, and I dont keep my shoulder down. This is easier for me to focus on when standing stationary than also to having to focus on the X-step.

A good traingin assignment from Blake can be found below. I have found it to be very helpful in learning what your disc can and cant do.

krusen wrote:The biggest gain in distance I got was when I learned to relax my arm and let my body do the work.

Thanks for mentioning this krusen. I think I try to 'not muscle the disc', which is likely a critical tip, but your relating this experientally as you have will certainly make me focus on that aspect more clearly.

Momac wrote:i'm not really sure how far i can drive, i know i can get close to the hole on par 3s. i've been meaning to go to this old abandoned driving range near where i live just to see how far i can throw. i'll let you know.

The shortest par 3 where I play is 237 ft, so I'm betting you're flinging pretty good, probably to at least 200. For measuring my distance I'm using the distance marked on the tee sign between the pro tee and the am tee on the 1st hole at my course. It's a dead straight 190 ft. Mind you, I'm not obsessing about big D here. I would die happy if I could drive 250 ft. My initial intent was/is, to sort of compare driving distance learning curve with peers at the same level of experience. And what really triggered this to cause me to ask you was the fact that Blake posted in another thread here recently, that he had, with more than 2/3 of the people he has introduced to the game, gotten them throwing over 275' within two rounds of playing. That literally took my breath away, I was utterly in shock. Thus began my quest for The Holy Grail.

rehder wrote:but I think I started at around 50 meters and am now around 65-70 meters in distance.

50 meters is approx 164' and 70 meters is approx 229',so rehder you're doing something terribly right after 4 weeks. My distance is absolutely the same whether I use the x step or stand flat-footed (duh, issues there!). Insofar as Blake's training assignment you pointed out - I figure that I'm not even at a level where I can throw the dang plastic 200' more than once in 30 throws, so I'm not even at the level where I can start the dang training assignments! Basically, I'm looking at the training assignments as beginning to learn flight patterns and mastering them, but first you have to be able to at least throw beyond the ability of a 4th grade girl. (No offense to 4th grade girls)

Now when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man, the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning. You know what I mean?

@Daevid
Well the cyclone that I throw is 173-174, so pretty heavy as far as I understand. And in the vid of myself I can clearly see that my forward shoulder finishes pretty high. And incidentally I pull my arm upwards.
Im not saying thats the only flaw in my throw, Im sure there are lots. But thats at least one of the mistakes.

Ill see if I can host the clip somewhere.

@arm Well the training assignment that i use is just the flightpath stuff. Im not to concerned about distance, I just try to figure out how to make the disc fly the four different flights.

rehder, that is a nicely done video clip you got there. I'm not qualified to critique anyone's style, but I get the sense that before long you'll be runnin' with the big dawgs. You're dead bang on about nose up and shoulder however.

You may or may not have seen these, but here's a link just in case: http://home.comcast.net/~tpozzy/prodrives.htmHint: If you use Windows Media Player and it doesn't connect to the media when trying to view, turn your firewall off.

Also, on the PDGA.com Discussion board under General Disc Golf Topics, 'Throwing Techniques' 're: Looking for advice to increase distance', Blake made an excellent post which also relates to some of what we've been talking about here, and also refers to some aspects of the above link.

Ok, I have started to better understand the different concepts involved in throwing and I can now understand how important hip rotation speed is. I threw a couple of throws just over 300 feet today. But that wasnt very accurate or anything. The most dificult thing for me, and I can imagine alot of other beginners as well. Is the timing between lower body rotation versus upper body rotation, arm swing and snap

And I can honestly say that this site and forum, are pretty much solely responsible for teaching me the different concepts and their importance to a well executed disc throw.